TVD: Friends Forever

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

One of the major themes in The Vampire Diaries is friendship, which we already know is also an important theme to me as I’ve dedicated my spare time to defining friendship. TVD has some great examples of good friends, so-so friends, and friends that seem wonderful but maybe aren’t so swell. Tomorrow we’ll look at my favorite friendship ever, but first I want to explore the Elena-Caroline-Bonnie triangle.

Sadly there’s a common perception in the world that girls are catty. Girls are cruel. While girls are okay when they have a single “bestie,” it’s thought that once you get a bunch of girls in a group there’s going to be tension and backstabbing. While the main girls in The Vampire Diaries have many faults, the one thing they have going for them is a strong friendship.

In TVD, Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena have been friends since they were kids. When the series first started I have to say I felt like it was more Bonnie & Elena as besties with Caroline as the tag-along friend. Of course, that’s because when we first meet Caroline she seems insensitive and shallow, while Bonnie seems far more caring and supportive.

As the season progressed through, I started to shift my views. Caroline has actually become one of my favorite characters. She does have a bit of a shallow focus in the world, and she definitely isn’t known for her tact, but she cares deeply. In her own way she is just trying to help everyone stay happy despite the circumstances.

While with Bonnie, the longer the show is on the more I hate her. Not because she’s a bad person. She truly does love Elena and Caroline. But being a bit more “deep” than the others she often gets caught up in moral judgments that cause her to go abandon her friends.

Don’t just take my word on it! Let’s look at some specific situations.

In season one after it’s finally revealed that Stefan is a vampire (yeah cuz that was a huuuuuge shock) Bonnie stops hanging out with Elena. She doesn’t approve of Elena’s relationship with Stefan, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with his kind. Well okay, that’s fine and dandy, if she feels that strongly about vampires then Elena just has to accept that. What I condemn Bonnie for is that fact that I don’t think she even made an effort. She could continue to hang out with Elena when Stefan is not around. She just doesn’t try. She only hangs out with Caroline. Then, she does things like say she’s going to help out while lying and doing the complete opposite of what she’s promised, resulting in multiple deaths. Thanks, Bonnie.

Of course Elena forgives her, and they move on.  For a while.

Then, Caroline gets turned into a vampire. This is totally Bonnie’s fault for multiple reasons. Caroline was in the hospital, not doing well but not definitely dying either. To be on the safe side Bonnie tells Damon to give Caroline some vampire blood, while Elena is against the idea. Then Carolina ends up dying and becoming a vampire. Of course everyone is upset, but they try to help Caroline transition to the life so she doesn’t hurt anyone. While what does Bonnie do? Refuse to see Caroline, and only hang out with Elena. Eventually she gets over it, but this was really the point that pissed me off as it was her decision in the first place to give Caroline the vampire blood that caused the transition.

Now Caroline on the other hand is far more forgiving. She could easily hold her transformation into a vampire against Bonnie, but she never does. While she is plagued by the feeling that she will never measure up to Elena (this is what happens when you date people that are attracted to your bestie) she always apologizes when she acts inappropriately and moves on. In fact, she almost dies multiple times as people use her to get to Elena and Bonnie, but she never holds it against either of her friends.

Later, she demonstrates even more remarkable strength when befriending someone that could easily kill her. When a member of her family is brutally murdered, she forgives the murderer knowing that it was a situation beyond their control. And she does this in the very next episode! No weeks of judgment and abandonment in the meantime.

Some might argue that Bonnie is the stronger character and that she is just sticking to her morals. I argue that Caroline is stronger. She certainly doesn’t agree with everything her friends do. In fact by season three she has realized that Elena is starting to be attracted to Damon, and constantly nags Elena to do the right thing (not Damon). But she never once turns her back on Elena like Bonnie normally does. She never once stops hanging around the two of them, because Caroline is strong enough to be around Elena without feeling like her own morals are compromised. This is where I think Bonnie falls short. 

Bonnie still comes around eventually though. No matter what their failings, these girls do stick together through it all.

Yet if I had to choose to be one of the three girls, I’d be a Caroline every time. Flaky, controlling, insecure, but one of the best friends you can ever have.